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A History of Sanskrit Literature c13: VI. The Lesser Epic Poets

A History of Sanskrit Literature c13

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VI. The Lesser Epic Poets

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NO other of the epic poets who have come down to us stands on the level of those whom we have reviewed, and of the early epic poets whose works are now lost we have far too little to be able to form any judgement of their true merit. Of Meṇṭha, or Bhartṛmeṇṭha, also called Hastipaka, Kalhaṇa¹ tells us that the king Mātṛgupta, himself a poet, found his *Hayagrīvavadha* so charming that he rewarded the poet by giving him a golden dish to place below it when it was being bound, lest the flavour should escape; delighted with this sign of appreciation the poet felt the reward needless. Mātṛgupta was according to Kalhaṇa a predecessor of Pravarasena, and his personality has suffered a confusion with Kālidāsa by unwise conjecture. His date must remain doubtful, but he is credited with a comment on the *Nāṭyaçāstra* of Bharata of which quotations remain. Kalhaṇa cites textually two stanzas, the former of which is heavy and laboured, the latter deserves citation:

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¹ iii. 125 ff., 260 ff. Cf. Peterson, *Subh.*, pp. 92 ff., 117 ff.; Aufrecht, *ZDMG.* xxvii. 51; xxxvi. 368. Thomas (*Kavīndravacanasamuccaya*) gives references to anthology verses for these poets.

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*nākāram udvahasi naiva vikatthase tvam: ditsāṁ na sūcayati muñcasi satphalāni*
*niḥçabdavarṣaṇam ivāmbudharasya rājan: saṁlakṣyate phalata eva tava prasādaḥ.*

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‘Thou dost display no emotion, nor dost thou boast; thou dost not reveal thy intention to give, but dost yield thy fair fruits; as when the cloud sheds its rain without a sound, so from its fruit alone, o king, is thy favour revealed.’ Meṇṭha receives the compliment, such as it is, of being placed second in the spiritual lineage of Vālmīki, Meṇṭha, Bhavabhūti and Rājaçekhara, while Maṅkha places him beside Subandhu, Bhāravi, and Bāṇa. Some pretty verses are cited from him in the anthologies, as usual with dubious correctness, but one may be quoted:

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*tathāpy akṛtakottālahāsapallavitādharam* *mukhaṁ grāmavilāsinyāḥ sakalaṁ rājyam arhati.*

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‘None the less the face of the village maiden, when her lower lip blossoms in an unfeigned loud laughter, is worth a whole kingdom.’ If we trust such evidence as there is regarding the date of Pravarasena,¹ successor of Mātṛgupta on the throne of Kashmir, we may set Meṇṭha towards the latter part of the sixth century, and make him a contemporary of the author of the *Setubandha*.

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¹ Cf. Stein, *Rājatar.*, i. 83 f.

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Not much later falls the *Rāvaṇārjunīya*² or *Ārjunarāvaṇīya* of Bhaumaka, also styled Bhīma, Bhūma, or Bhūmaka, who won fame in Kashmīr. The epic in twenty-seven cantos tells the tale, found in the *Rāmāyaṇa*, of the strife between Arjuna Kārtavīrya and Rāvaṇa, but as in the case of Bhaṭṭi, whose example may have been followed, though the dates are indecisive, the aim is to illustrate rules of grammar. The pedantic side predominates in the later work, *Kavirahasya*³ of Halāyudha, which is really meant to illustrate the modes of formation of the present tense of Sanskrit roots, but incidentally serves as a eulogy of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king Kṛṣṇa III (*c.* A. D. 940–56).

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² Ed. KM. 68, 1900. Cf. Trivedī, *Bhaṭṭikāvya*, i. pp. x f.

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³ Ed. Greifswald, 1900. A *Yudhiṣṭhiravijaya* with a continuation, *Dhātukāvya*, dealing with the Bhārata story and grammar and roots (KM. x. 52–231) is ascribed to a Vāsudeva; cf. possibly the Vāsudeva of the rimed poems (JRAS. 1925, pp. 264 ff.).

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Kashmīr under Avantivarman before the close of the ninth century gives us a Buddhist epic of some interest, the *Kapphaṇābhyudaya*,⁴ which is based on a tale in the *Avadānaçataka* of the conversion of a king of the south who had harboured evil designs against the king of Çrāvastī. This topic is treated by Çivasvāmin in the full epic manner, manifestly under the influence of Māgha and of Bhāravi, for the structure of the poem is manifestly based on that of the *Kirātārjunīya* as well as of the *Çiçupālavadha*. The poem opens with a description of Kapphaṇa and Līlāvatī, his royal capital (i). A spy bears the news of the pride of Prasenajit and of his just rule, as in *Kirātārjunīya* i. The princes at the court are in confusion at the news (iii); there is held a council of war (iv), and an envoy is dispatched to bear the threat of war to Prasenajit (v). Then occurs the usual digression; the king is induced by a Vidyādhara to visit with him the Malaya mountain in order there to devise a plan of campaign (vi), in reality to allow of the time-honoured descriptions, in which he vies as regards figures of sound with *Çiçupālavadha* iv and *Kirātārjunīya* v. Then are fully developed the encampment of the host (vii), the seasons which unite on the mountain in order to permit of the poet describing them all in one canto (viii), the sports of the army with its women in the water (ix), then their amusements in roaming the woods and picking flowers (x). Sunset is now due (xi), and the moon must rise (xii), to excite the damsels to join with their unwarlike swains in a drinking bout (xiii), and then in the mysteries of love in the best manner of the Kāmaçāstra (xiv). The end of the night and daybreak are now inevitable (xv). The host, refreshed and encouraged by its debaucheries, marches (xvi), and a long drawn out conflict (xvii–xix) results in the conversion of Kapphaṇa (xx). The anthologies have some quite pretty verses, but all is very much at second hand, and in this case the master is decidedly superior to the pupil. The author clearly was well read in Sanskrit literature, and, very naturally for a Buddhist, he has a reference to the *Nāgānanda* of Harṣa in an allusion to the piles of bones of Nāgas slain by Garuḍa heaped up on the seashore beyond the Malaya mountains.

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⁴ Çeshagiri, *Report*, 1893–4, pp. 49 ff.; Aufrecht, ZDMG. xxvii. 92 f.; Thomas, *Kavīndravacanasamuccaya*, pp. 111 ff.; Mitra, *Nep. Buddh. Lit.*, p. 38 (Kappiṇa of the Dakṣiṇāpatha).

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Māgha's great influence is seen also in the *Haravijaya*,¹ the work of another Kashmirian, Ratnākara with the styles Rājānaka and Vāgīçvara, who flourished under Bṛhaspati or Cippaṭa Jayāpīḍa and Avantivarman, and was thus in his prime about A.D. 850. The theme is of the lightest, the slaying of the demon Andhaka, born of Çiva when Pārvatī playfully covered his eyes with her hands. The child thus unhappily born blind grows up, by austerities wins sight, and becomes master of the three worlds until, as usual, Çiva finds it necessary to kill him. The plan is the same scheme we have seen already; Çiva's capital must be described (i), then his Tāṇḍava dance (ii), the seasons (iii), and mount Mandara (iv, v). Then comes in the *motif* of the appeal of the seasons, headed by spring, to Çiva for protection against the new conqueror. Çiva's counsellors now debate, and the poet has up to Canto xvi to display his perfection in the art of politics. After all the talk an envoy is dispatched to the demon to bid him retire from the realms he has usurped. Here is the moment for the usual digression, and we have thirteen cantos of the sports of the retinue of Çiva, precisely of the same sort already recorded, including sunrise, sunset, the stormy sea, and a very careful exposition of the practice of the Kāmaçāstra in xxix. The envoy at last reaches the demon's kingdom in heaven, which necessarily must be described at length (xxxi). The exchange of speeches which follows requires seven cantos. The envoy naturally returns without having accomplished anything save a prodigious amount of bad rhetoric; the forces of Çiva take four cantos to be made ready for battle—for which their amorous sports would seem to render them dubiously fitted. They prove somewhat mediocre warriors, but after Canto xlvii has been variegated by the insertion of a hymn to the dread goddess Caṇḍī, the poem is allowed to close at Canto l with the death of the miscreant. The poet claims to have imitated Bāṇa, and some notice is taken of him in the anthologies, but, though he is doubtless responsible for some good stanzas, and Kṣemendra attests his skill in the Vasantatilaka metre, his poem is a hopeless blunder and his fondness for Yamakas adds to its inherent dreariness. No more striking instance exists than this of the utter lack of proportion which can afflict the minds of poets with considerable technical facility and abundant knowledge.

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¹ Ed. with Alaka's comm., KM. 22, 1890. For anthology verses see Peterson, *Subhāṣitāvali*, pp. 96 ff.; Aufrecht, ZDMG. xxxvi. 372 ff. For imitation of Māgha, cf. Jacobi, WZKM. iv. 240 f.; Dhruva, v. 25.

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To the same century and Kashmir belongs Abhinanda, son of Jayanta Bhaṭṭa, the logician, who wrote an epitome in epic form of the *Kādambarī* of Bāṇa, styled the *Kādambarīkathāsāra*,¹ and who mentions Rājaçekhara as a contemporary. The date of his namesake, son of Çatānanda, author of a *Rāmacarita*, which deals with the history of Rāma from the rape of Sītā, is unknown, and equally uncertain is it to which of these worthies is ascribed by an unknown hand² comparison with Kālidāsa. What is certain is that neither deserves it in the slightest. Kashmir again in the eleventh century produced a writer of the most unflinching industry and often dreariness,³ the polymath Kṣemendra. In 1037 he wrote his *Bhāratamañjarī*,¹ in 1066 a *Daçāvatāracarita*,² in which each of the ten incarnations of Viṣṇu is described, the ninth being the Buddha thus definitely adopted into the Hindu pantheon. Of early date no doubt is his *Rāmāyaṇamañjarī*,³ an epitome of the epic, which like that of the *Bhārata* is correct and important for the history of the text but poetically worthless. He turned the *Kādambarī* also into verse in the *Padya-Kādambarī*.

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¹ Cf. Thomas, *Kavīndravacanasamuccaya*, p. 20; Bühler, IA. ii. 102 f.

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² *Çārṅgadhara*, viii. 5, where Acala and Amala are added.

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³ Cf. Lévi, JA. 1885, ii. 420.

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¹ Ed. KM. 65, 1898.

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² Ed. KM. 26, 1891.

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³ Ed. KM. 83, 1903. Cf. Jacobi, *Rāmāyaṇa*, p. 15.

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Kashmir again in the twelfth century produced an interesting writer in Maṅkha, pupil of Ruyyaka, who mentions in his *Alaṃkārasarvasva* his epic, the *Çrīkaṇṭhacarita*,⁴ which in twenty-five cantos tells the tale of the overthrow by Çiva of the demon Tripura. The form is the stereotyped one with a few variations; thus in Canto i prayers and benedictions occupy a considerable space, in ii and iii we have some ethical matter in the form of descriptions of the good and the bad, &c. But by iv we are back to a description of Kailāsa, of its master (v), the spring (vi), and then of the usual sports, swinging, plucking flowers in the woods, mixed bathing (vii–ix). Then follow the equally usual descriptions of the dusk, the rising of the moon, and allied topics until in xviii–xxi we have a return to more martial exploits; after the usual confusion the hosts of Çiva are marshalled and got under way. The Daityas are confounded (xxii), the battle is fought in the stereotyped way (xxiii), and Tripura burned. Then by a happy transition Maṅkha gives us in xxv the only part of the poem worth reading. He depicts a durbar of learned men held by his brother Alaṃkāra, minister of Jayasiṅha (1129–50). Here we have a picture from the real life of the persons who made up this learned society, their special capacities and interests, the occasion for the gathering being his completion of his poem and his declamation of it to his friends. We learn much of interest, including the fact that he was one of four brothers who all were writers and officials of the court. Doubtless such a Sabhā must have represented with great accuracy the meetings common in the days of Kālidāsa and earlier; the similarity to those familiar to us from Statius, Juvenal, Martial, and Pliny is striking and interesting. No such excursion into the realms of real life enlivens the *Haracaritacintāmaṇi*¹ of the Kashmirian Jayaratha in the same century, which, however, has some value for religion as at once a storehouse of Çaiva myths and of evidence of Çaiva practices and beliefs.

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⁴ Ed. KM. 3, 1887. Cf. Bühler, *Report*, pp. 50 ff. On his use of the Udgatā metre cf. Jacobi, ZDMG. xliii. 467.

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¹ Ed. KM. 61, 1897. Cf. Bühler, *Report*, p. 61.

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As is well known, the Jains sought steadily to take over all Brahmanical myths and make them their own. To Amaracandra (*c.* 1250) we owe a *Bālabhārata*,² which is distinguished in metre but in no other respect. Apparently about 1050 Lolimbarāja wrote his *Harivilāsa*³ which in Canto iii gives the usual description of the seasons and in iv of Kṛṣṇa. But little religious poetry aimed at Kāvya style; the influence of the Purāṇas resulted in the great mass of Jain work, for instance, being cast in an unpretentious and pedestrian Sanskrit.

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² Ed. KM. 45, 1894. Cf. Weber, ZDMG. xxvii. 170 ff.; he uses the Lalitā and Svāgatā.

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³ Ed. KM. xi. 94–133.

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But a triumph of misplaced ingenuity was attained in the twelfth century by three writers. The first perhaps in time was Sandhyākara Nandin, whose *Rāmapālacarita*⁴ is intended to refer in each stanza to the history of Rāma and also to the king Rāmapāla, who flourished at the close of the eleventh century in Bengal. The second was apparently the Jain writer Dhanaṁjaya,⁵ perhaps called Çrutakīrti, a Digambara, who wrote between 1123 and 1140; the third Kavirāja,⁶ styled also Sūri or Paṇḍita, whose real name was perhaps Mādhava Bhaṭṭa, and whose patron, as he obligingly tells us, was Kāmadeva, probably the Kādamba king (1182–97). Both these authors perpetrated poems styled *Rāghavapāṇḍavīya* in which we are told simultaneously the stories of the *Rāmāyaṇa* and the *Mahābhārata*. The feat, which at first sight appears incredible, is explained without special difficulty by the nature of Sanskrit. Treating each line of verse as a unit, it is possible to break it up very variously into words by grouping together the syllables. Then the meaning of compounds is often vitally affected by the mode in which the relations between the words composing them are conceived, even when the words are understood in the same sense and the compound is analysed into the same terms. Further, and this is of special importance, the Sanskrit lexica allow to words a very large variety of meanings and they supply a considerable number of very strange words which have a remarkable appearance of being more or less manufactured, in the sense that the meaning or form ascribed may have been derived from some mere misunderstanding or in some cases from a mere misreading. The way for such works as these two poems was paved by the *double entendres* of Subandhu and Bāṇa, and Kavirāja expressly states that he claims to be unrivalled by any but these two in the use of twisted language (*vakrokti*). The *Rāghavanaiṣadhīya* of Haradatta Sūri, of unknown date, performs the same feat for the tale of Rāma and Nala, and a doubtless quite late *Rāghavapāṇḍavīyayādavīya* by Cidambara adds the absurdity of telling three stories, the third being the legend of the *Bhāgavata Purāṇa*.¹ The deplorable folly of such works is obvious, but it remains true that Kavirāja at least shows some very fair talent and might have written something worthy of consideration if his taste had not led him to this extravagance.

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⁴ Ed. MASB. iii. 1–56.

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⁵ Ed. KM. 49, 1895 (18 cantos). Cf. Bhandarkar, *Report*, 1884–7, pp. 19 f.; Pathak, JBRAS. xxi. 1 ff.; Fleet, IA. xxxiii. 279.

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⁶ Ed. KM. 62. The date, *c.* 1000, ascribed by Bhandarkar, p. 20, is dealt with by Pischel (*Die Hofdichter des Lakṣmaṇasena*, pp. 37 f.). Cf. Fleet, *Bombay Gaz.*, i. 2. 563.

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¹ Veṅkaṭādhvarin's *Yādavarāghavīya* in 30 stanzas tells Rāma's story, while read backwards it gives Kṛṣṇa's (*Madras Catal.*, xx. 7956).

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A couple of stanzas from the second canto may serve to indicate the devices by which two stories are told simultaneously:

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*nṛpeṇa kanyāṁ janakena ditsitām: ayonijāṁ lambhayituṁ svayaṁvare*
*dvijaprakarṣeṇa sa dharmanandanaḥ: sahānujas tāṁ bhuvam apy anīyata.*

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‘(Rāma), who gladdened righteousness, was conducted, together with his younger brother, by that best of sages (Viçvāmitra) to the place of the Svayaṁvara, in order that he might be made to win the daughter born of no mortal womb, whom king Janaka was fain to give in wedlock.’ According to the *Mahābhārata* version this runs: ‘The son of Dharma (Yudhiṣṭhira) was conducted, together with his younger brothers, by (order of) that best of sages (Vyāsa) to the place of the Svayaṁvara (Pañcāla), in order that he might be made to win the daughter born of no mortal womb whom her royal father (Drupada) was fain to give in wedlock.’ Sītā was born from the ploughshare, Draupadī from the sacrificial altar.

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*mārgeṣv atho dīrghatamaḥsutasya: kalatrakṛsrapratimokṣaṇena*
*aṅgāravarṇasya jitātmano ’sau: cakāra toṣaṁ naradevajanmā.*

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‘Then, as he fared along, the son of the king of men delighted the heart of (the sage) of flaming hue and senses controlled, son of Dīrghatamas (Gotama) by releasing his spouse from her misfortune (of being reduced to a stone).’ In the case of the *Mahābhārata* we must read *tamaḥsu tasya*, and render: ‘Then, as he fared on ways where darkness long lingers (near the Ganges), the son of the king of men delighted the heart of (the Gandharva) Aṅgāravarṇa, whom he defeated, by releasing him at the prayer of his wife from peril of death.’ The commentator adds ingenuously that there is a variant of Aṅgāraparṇa in the *Bhārata* whence the tale alluded to is derived, and in that case suggests a different rendering for the term as applied to the *Rāmāyaṇa*.

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The result thus achieved is, of course, ultimately nothing more than the systematic development of the love of paronomasias which is seen to such perfection in Subandhu and Bāṇa. We find a similar result achieved in the curious *Rasikarañjana*¹ of Rāmacandra, son of Lakṣmaṇa Bhaṭṭa who wrote in 1542 at Ayodhyā, for the verses of that work, read one way, give an erotic poem, in another, a eulogy of asceticism. L. H. Gray² has noted a western parallel in the elegy of Leon of Medina on his teacher Moses Bassola, which can be read either as. Italian or as Hebrew.³

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¹ Ed. and trans. R. Schmidt, Stuttgart, 1896.

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² *Vāsavadattā*, p. 32, n. 1.

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³ Vidyāmādhava, author of a treatise on horary astrology (ed. *Bibl. Sansk.* 63) and a comm. on Bhāravi, cites Bāṇa, Subandhu, and himself with Kavirāja as masters; his *Pārvatīrukmiṇīya* describes the marriages of Çiva and Pārvatī, Kṛṣṇa and Rukmiṇī. He wrote under Somadeva of the Cālukya line (*Madras Catal.*, xx. 7778 f.).

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An interesting and characteristic figure of the latest stage of classical Kāvya is Çrīharṣa, son of Hīra and Māmalladevī, author of the *Naiṣadhacarita*⁴ or *Naiṣadhīya*, who wrote probably under Vijayacandra and Jayacandra of Kanauj in the second half of the twelfth century,¹ though this date has not passed unquestioned.² He was also author of other works, including the *Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya* in which he establishes the reasonableness of the Vedānta by showing that all attempts at obtaining certainty are fallacious. The *Naiṣadhīya* unquestionably has a definite interest in the history of Sanskrit literature, for it exhibits the application to the charming episode of the *Mahābhārata*, familiar to all students as the *Nala*, of the full resources of a master of diction and metre, possessed of a high degree of skill in the difficult art of playing on words, and capable of both delicate observation of nature and of effective expression of the impressions thence derived. Indian taste shows its appreciation of him beyond question in naming him a Mahākavi as the successor of Kālidāsa, Bhāravi, and Māgha, nor need we doubt that to any of these critics the *Nala* would have seemed insufferably tame compared to the work of Çrīharṣa. As one enthusiast of modern times³ says, ‘all mythology is at his fingers’ ends. Rhetoric he rides over. He sees no end to the flow of his description,’ and the same author, in recounting a tradition that the work counted when complete 60 or 120 cantos expresses the hope that the missing portion may be discovered in some collection of manuscripts. It is happily incredible that even Çrīharṣa should have thought it worth while further elaborating his theme. As it is, the long poem carries us only to a description of the married bliss of Nala and Damayantī, leaving off with a description of the moon carried out in a dialogue between the amorous pair. Needless to say, Çrīharṣa, in dealing with the theme of the wedding, shows that his logical studies had in no way prevented him becoming an expert of great skill in all the complexities of the *Kāmasūtra*. We could wish that there was some respectable authority for an anecdote once current regarding Harṣa; he was, this tale runs, the nephew of Mammaṭa, the famous author of the *Kāvyaprakāça*, to whom in pride he exhibited his poem. His uncle, in lieu of rejoicing, expressed only profound regret that he had not seen it before he wrote the chapter on faults in poetry in that treatise, since it would have saved him all the labour to which he had been put in searching books to find illustrations of the mistakes which he censured.

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⁴ Ed. BI. 1836 and 1855 (two parts) and NSP. 1894.

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¹ Bühler, JBRAS. x. 31 ff.; xi. 279 ff.

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² R. P. Chanda, IA. xlii. 83 f., 286 f.

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³ Krishnamacharya, *Sanskr. Lit.*, p. 45. Nilakamala Bhattacharya (*Naiṣadha and Śrī Harṣa*) argues that he was a Bengali.

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Yet it is fair to admit Çrīharṣa's cleverness; his power of *double entendre* receives perfectly fair use in the recast of the famous scene in which Damayantī sees before her five men apparently exactly alike and cannot decide which is her lover. Sarasvatī, in Çrīharṣa's version, presents the five to her and describes each in words which on one reading do express his true identity, but on the other apply to Nala, thus setting the poor girl a still more distracting task. It is a consolation to reflect that, even had she known Sanskrit, she would not have been able without a comment to understand what was said by the goddess. Nor, again, is it possible to deny that the transition in the last canto from the description of night to that of the moon is gracefully effected; Nala exclaims that the moon has grown red with anger at the too prolonged celebration of the beauties of his friend, and then to appease his wrath he straightway hails the appearance of the moon rising in ruddy splendour.¹

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¹ The *Suprabhātastotra* (Thomas, JRAS. 1903, pp. 703-22) ascribed to him is also claimed for Harṣavardhana (Jackson, *Priyadarśikā*, p. xlv). An *Uttaranaishadhīya* in sixteen cantos was written by Vandāru Bhaṭṭa (*Madras Catal.*, xx. 7692).

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Çrīharṣa uses only nineteen metres, a comparatively small number. Of these, the favourite is Upajāti of the Indravajrā type, which is predominant in seven cantos; the Vaṅçasthā type prevails in four cantos and is the chief metre in Canto xii, in which after the model of Bhāravi and Māgha the poet goes out of his way to vary his metres. The Çloka,² Vasantatilaka, and Svāgatā are each the main metre of two cantos, while one canto each is found of Drutavilambita, Rathoddhatā, Vaitālīya, and Hariṇī. There is only one stanza in each of Acaladhṛti, Toṭaka, Dodhaka, and Pṛthvī, and five in Mandākrāntā. More frequent yet limited use is made of Puṣpitāgrā, Mālinī, Çikhariṇī, and Sragdharā.

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² He rarely has Vipulās (only four in 752 half-stanzas in xvii and xx); SIFI. VIII. ii. 54. In xvii. 199 a line ends with a caesura in Sandhi.

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Though on the whole we must condemn the elaboration of Çrīharṣa and his excessive use of Yamakas and rime, he was certainly capable of elegance and skill in the use of language, as in his famous description of the rising of the moon:

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*paçyāvṛto ’py eṣa nimeṣam adrer: adhītyakābhūmitiraska-
rīṇyā*
*pravarṣati preyasi candrikābhiḥ: cakoracañcūculukaṁ pra-
tīnduḥ.*

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‘See, darling, how, for a moment hidden though it be by the curtain of the summit of the mountain, the moon doth spare the rain of its moonbeams to quench the thirst of the Cakora birds.’

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*dhvāntadrumāntān abhisārikās tvaṁ: çaṅkasva saṁketa-
niketam āptāḥ*
*chāyāchalād ujjhitanīlacelā: jyotsnānukūlaiç calitā dukūlaiḥ.*

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‘Just fancy that these beams are maidens which have sought at the foot of the trees in the dusk secret meeting with their lovers; now laying aside their dark garments as though they were the shadow, they move in raiment that matches the moonlight.’

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*tvadāsyalakṣmīmukuraṁ cakoraiḥ: svakaumudīm ādayamā-
nam indum*
*dṛçā niçendīvaracārubhāsā: piboru rambhātarupīvaroru.*

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‘Drink thou deep with thine eyes, that are fair as the night lotus, the moon that doth serve to mirror the loveliness of thy face, and that doth make the Cakoras feed on its light, o lady whose thighs are fair as the young plantain shoots.’

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The Jains naturally enough aimed at vying with the classical epic, and we have in the *Yaçodharacarita*¹ of Kanakasena Vādirāja, a resident in the Draviḍa country, whose pupil Çrīvijaya flourished about a.d. 950, a Kāvya in four cantos with 296 verses. Its contents agree with the *Yaçastilaka* of the slightly later Somadeva, showing that the tale must have been then current; the two versions differ slightly in content but not in spirit. Another version of the legend is that of Māṇikya Sūri whose *Yaçodharacaritra*² belongs probably to the eleventh century at latest. It represents the work of a Çvetāmbara Jain of Gujarāt, as opposed to the Digambara version of Vādirāja, but the two accounts are independent. To the period between 1160 and 1172 belongs the enormous work of Hemacandra (1088–1172), the *Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacarita*,¹ which in ten Parvans handles the lives of the sixty-three best men of the Jain faith, the twenty-four Jinas, twelve Cakravartins, nine Vāsudevas, nine Baladevas, and nine Viṣṇudviṣas. The epic is long and wearisome, though the language is simple and not elaborate; the last Parvan, which deals with the life of Mahāvīra, comes nearer to sober history in that it gives us some definite information regarding the life of this worthy, if prolix, monk, who succeeded in converting to Jainism Kumārapāla of Gujarāt. Of unknown date is Haricandra, author of the *Dharmaçarmābhyudaya*,² in twenty-one cantos, on the life of the fifteenth Tīrthakara, Dharmanātha. Neminātha’s life is the subject of a Kāvya³ in fifteen cantos by the writer on poetics Vāgbhaṭa, probably in the twelfth century. There may be mentioned as having some claim to consideration the *Pāṇḍavacaritra* and *Mṛgāvatīcaritra*⁴ of Devaprabha Sūri of the school of Maladhārin in the thirteenth century, and Cāritrasundara Gaṇin’s *Mahīpālacaritra*,⁵ which claims to be a Mahākāvya in fourteen cantos of 1159 verses. These works, however, have value rather for their tales than for their literary merit. Of much higher merit in this regard, though it deals with a trite theme and the author evidently knew both Açvaghoṣa and Kālidāsa’s works well, is the Mahākāvya *Padyacūḍāmaṇi*⁶ ascribed to a Buddhaghoṣācārya. That this is the work of the famous Pāli scholar Buddhaghoṣa can hardly be seriously affirmed; the silence of our records of that able man would be inexplicable, and, if the attribution is not a case of false ascription, it remains that there must have lived a scholar of the same name, whose date at present evades definite determination.

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¹ Ed. 1910; see Hertel, *Pāla und Gopāla*, pp. 91 ff., 146 ff.

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² Ed. Tanjore, 1912; Hertel, pp. 81 ff., 139 ff.

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¹ Ed. Bombay, 1905. See Bühler, *Über das Leben des Jaina-Mönches Hemachandra* (1889); Jacobi, *ERE.* vi. 591.

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² Ed. KM. 1888. Cf. Peterson, *Report*, ii, pp. 77 ff. He perhaps wrote the *Jīvandharacampū*, and uses Māgha and Vākpati (WZKM. iii. 136 ff.). His father was a Kāyastha, Ārdradeva.

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³ *Neminirvāṇa*, ed. KM. 56, 1896. The identity of the author is not certain. In *Madras Catal.*, xx. 7754 he is son of Dāhaṭa (? Bāhaṭa), of the Prāgvādi family.

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⁴ Ed. 1909; Hertel, pp. 105 ff., 150 ff. Cf. Peterson, *Report*, iii, pp. 273 ff.

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⁵ Ed. 1909; Hertel, pp. 72 ff., 138 ff.

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⁶ Ed. Madras, 1921.

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